NTT and Olympus: Paving the Way for Cloud-Based Endoscopy
AI and cloud computing is promosing healthcare providers, saddled with staffing shortages and backlogs from Covid, the chance to make significant strides in their operations.
From ensuring better delivery of discharge advice to enhance medical diagnostics, the uses are already underway.
However, what is new is the product of the NTT Corporation and Olympus Corporation partnership. They have announced the establishment of the world's first cloud endoscopy system.
Tackling challenges with endoscopies
Current endoscopy systems face several limitations that hinder their effectiveness and usability. Traditional endoscopes handle all functions internally, leading to performance constraints and maintainability issues
They often struggle with incomplete visualisation of the colonic mucosa, particularly behind folds and at flexures, resulting in missed polyps and potentially compromised patient outcomes
Additionally, the complex manipulation required for precise movement and the limited bending angles of conventional endoscopes pose challenges even for experienced operators
The cloud endoscopy system developed by NTT and Olympus addresses these issues. Utilising IOWN APN technology, it leverages IOWN APN technology to process endoscopic videos remotely.
This innovation allows for real-time, high-quality image processing on a cloud server located up to 150 km away, with remarkably low latency of just 1.1 milliseconds, whilst enabling AI-enhanced processing before returning it for display.
By offloading processing tasks to the cloud, this system paves the way for more flexible feature improvements, real-time remote diagnosis and treatment capabilities, and potentially enhanced image quality through advanced processing techniques
Furthermore, it could facilitate the sharing of processing resources among multiple hospitals, potentially improving access to advanced medical care and enabling more efficient updates to endoscopic functionalities.
The shift towards cloud-based processing is driven by the need for real-time remote diagnostics and treatment capabilities.
To facilitate cloud-based image processing, a robust network connection between the endoscope and the cloud is essential. Any network lag can lead to delays in image transmission, affecting the operator's experience.
This demonstration integrated Olympus' advanced endoscope technology with NTT's high-speed APN technology to achieve real-time video processing during the joint experiment initiated in March of this year.
NTT's role focused on evaluating network quality and providing the APN experiment environment, whilst Olympus supplied the endoscope device and assessed the cloud system's performance
NTT DATA’s healthcare-focused offerings include its integrated data and analytics platform, Business Insights Engine and Nucleus for Healthcare platform, which deliver value for healthcare businesses with its data integration, automation, advanced analytics and AI.
Enhancing in-op diagnostics
Such achievement marks a significant step towards improving medical diagnostics and treatment capabilities.
This successful demonstration opens up new possibilities for cloud systems in healthcare, addressing critical challenges such as data security and real-time diagnostics across multiple hospitals.
NTT aims to establish a reference model for medical device networks, whilst Olympus will focus on optimising network solutions for cloud-based endoscopy systems, potentially revolutionising access to advanced medical care
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